Why You Should Get Involved With Social Shopping: E-commerce 2.0

**Why You Should Get Involved With Social Shopping: E-commerce 2.0**

**by Jordan Kasteler**

Social shopping relays an e-commerce method of traditional shopping
in which consumers shop in a social networking type of environment.
Social shopping sites reflect users� personal tastes and allow for
online conversation. Visitors can learn what�s popular, get shopping
ideas, and follow links to products they wouldn�t necessarily find on
their own.

Using the wisdom of crowds, users communicate and aggregate
information about products, prices, and deals. Many sites allow users
to create custom shopping lists and share them with friends. Others
concentrate on the user interactions and recommendations based upon
peer-to-peer social relationships and credible users. While Web 2.0 is
slowly morphing new direction, social shopping is still trying to hit
mainstream. Compared to many Web 2.0 sites, social shopping sites are
slowly growing but still growing hand over fist.

Social shopping combines two of the Webs most prominent activities:
engaging in commerce and chatting with like-minded folks. The sites
dont directly sell things, but encourage users to share links to:

Hot products
Good finds
Weird finds
Quality products
Products to avoid

Internet marketing with social shopping

The rise of social shopping provides Internet marketers with even
more opportunities and challenges, online. This many-to-many form of
word-of-mouth marketing offers a wealth of opportunities for Internet
marketers with limited client budgets to work on. This also creates a
great opportunity for online retailers to engage in some low-cost,
word-of-mouth marketing.

Internet marketers need to take heed of the many facets of marketing
with social shopping. These elements include:

Credibility

Product recommendations that come from social users with credibility
may be more trusted. Therefore, site visitors may return more often
and be more likely to spread the good word and purchase the products
they learn about on the sites.

Marketing Opportunity: Start building up your own social shopping
accounts to learn the sites in and out. Then, start contributing to
the community and building a fan-base for yourself, thus giving you
credibility. Once a network of followers or friends is built you can
lean on them to help promote and review your products.

Utility

Users have many tools at their disposal for sharing and collaborating
products. Browser bookmarklets, widgets, wishlists, profiles, buzz
measuring features, and more help users interface with one another.

Marketing Opportunity: These tools allow marketers to analyze the
current sentiment and interest around brands and products. Utilize
these features for market and user research.

Sales

By its nature, social shopping is more likely to impact brand
awareness, purchase consideration and intent, but not necessarily
direct sales as much as one might expect. The ROI is likely not fully
there quite yet until social shopping hits the mainstream.

Marketing Opportunity: Some social shopping sites offer the unique
opportunity for brands to connect with their audiences by integrating
with and/or creating shopping communities often with direct
communication capabilities within the network.

Get your e-commerce clients involved in social shopping now while it
is early enough to become a maven in the communities, promote with
ease, and be heard. Once you establish yourself and clients in a
community early on, this opens many doors of further opportunity down
the road.

Social shopping sites to get started with

Right now, Kaboodle.com <http://kaboodle.com>
takes the cake as far as having the largest community, most unique
visitors, and friendliest UI. Heres a full list for you to start with
though:

Kaboodle <http://www.kaboodle.com/>

StyleHive <http://www.stylehive.com/>

ThisNext <http://www.thisnext.com/>

CrowdStorm <http://www.crowdstorm.com/>

Wists <http://www.wists.com/>

Shoppero <http://en.shoppero.com/>

StyleFeeder <http://www.stylefeeder.com/>

StuffPit <http://www.stuffpit.com/>

NaturalBornShopper <http://www.naturalbornshopper.co.uk/>

Storrz <http://www.storrz.com/>

Zixxo <http://www.zixxo.com/>

DealBundle <http://www.dealbundle.com/>

FiveLimes <http://www.fivelimes.com/>

MyPickList <http://www.mypicklist.com/>

TribeSmart <http://www.tribesmart.com/>

Woot <http://woot.com>

RedFlagDeals <http://www.redflagdeals.com/>

RedTagCrazy <http://redtagcrazy.com/>

Zebo <http://zebo.com>

ShopStyle <http://shopstyle.com>

MyItThings <http://myitthings.com>

ShopTogether <http://www.shoptogether.it/>

ProductWiki <http://www.productwiki.com/>

ILikeTotallyLoveIt <http://iliketotallyloveit.com>

Wishpot <http://wishpot.com>

Shopflick <http://shopflick.com>

Fluid <http://fluid.com>

DesignSociety <http://designsociety.net>

ReallyWantThat <http://reallywantthat.com>

JustBoughtIt <http://justbought.it/>

Fruugo <http://fruugo.com>

Select2gether <http://www.select2gether.com/>

Veedow <http://www.veedow.com/hello>

GoToDaily <http://gotodaily.com>

Like <http://www.like.com/>

ShopFiber <http://shopfiber.com>

Etsy <http://www.etsy.com/>

Glimpse <http://www.glimpse.com/>

Hawkee <http://www.hawkee.com/>

Osoyou <http://osoyou.com/>

ReesyCakes <http://ReesyCakes.com>

Yub <http://yub.com>

WhatsBuzzing <http://www.whatsbuzzing.com/>

Desiresin <http://www.desiresin.com/>

TheFind <http://www.thefind.com/>

WishRoll <http://www.wishroll.com>

USuggest <http://usuggest.com/>

Shopr.com <http://www.shopr.com/>

Marketers will be interested in a brief look at compiled demographic
data for social shopping and review sites compiled from Alexa,
Compete, and Quantcast thanks to SocialMediaTrader.com
<http://www.socialmediatrader.com>
:

<http://socialmediatrader.com/the-future-of-shopping-17-social-shopping-sites/>

Proceed to checkout

The Comparison Shopping Engines (CSEs) should take a close look at
social shopping and consider an integration of the two. As the
peoples voice continues to grow louder and louder online, the
synergistic approach of combining CSEs and the e-commerce experience
with social shopping could but the biggest key element in the future
for online shopping.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the author, and not
necessarily Search Engine Land.

Jordan Kasteler
<http://searchengineland.com/author/jordan-kasteler/>
(a.k.a. Utah SEO Pro) is a fore-runner in embracing social media and
is the co-founder of his own SEO firm
<http://www.searchandsocial.com/>
, Search & Social.

<font size="-1">
Upcoming Search Marketing Expo events you won't want to miss:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-saopaulo/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BSao%2BPaulo%2B2009">SMX
Sao Paulo</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/east/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BEast%2B2009">SMX
East - New York City</a> - Oct. 5-7</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/stockholm?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2Bstockholm%2B2009">SMX
Stockholm</a> - Oct. 12-13</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.es/smx-mexico/2009/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BMexiso%2B2009">SMX
Mexico</a> - November 11</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/west/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BWest%2B2010">SMX
West - Santa Clara, CA</a> - March 2-4, 2010</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=text&utm_content=footertext&utm_campaign=SMX%2BAdvanced%2B2010">SMX
Advanced - Seattle, WA</a> - June 8-9, 2010</li></ul>Attend a <a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=SMN%2Bgeneral">Search
Marketing Now</a> Webcast - it's free! Upcoming webcasts:<ul><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com">PPC Campaign Automation: Bid
Management, Alerts..the Works</a> - August 4</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/">Integrating Mobile Marketing into a
Large-Scale Marketing Campaign</a> - August 12, 2009</li><li><a
href="http://searchmarketingnow.com/webcasts/wc090819">Local Business
Listings: Straight Talk With the Data Providers</a> - August
19</li></ul>Interested in advertising or sponsoring Search Marketing Expo
or Search Marketing Now webcasts? <a
href="http://thirddoormedia.com/contact/sales.shtml?utm_source=searchcap&utm_medium=email&utm_content=textlink&utm_campaign=General%2BSales">Contact
us</a>.

<div><a href="http://www.superbhosting.net/"><img
src="http://www.searchmarketingnow.com/_images/superb.gif"
border="0"></a></div>
You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a Search Engine
Land, Search Marketing Now or Search Marketing Expo newsletter. To update
your subscriptions or unsubscribe, use your newsletter preferences page at
http://third.thirddoormedia.com/lists/?p=preferences&id=2&uid=f9779113b77d03598707df46ae032f9b.
Or send your written request to: 279 Newtown Tpke., Redding, CT
06896</font>

--
Powered by PHPlist, www.phplist.com --